She clutches the garment without looking at it, a muscle flexing along her slender neck. I turn and sidestep a puddle,making my way to the exit and silently berating myself for letting so much show.
“Aria.” Her voice is raspy, as if she can’t quite get herself to use it wholly.
“Yes?” I answer, looking over my shoulder.
“Just because what is inside of us is dark doesn’t mean that it holds less value than something light.” She takes a single step towards me, then stops. “We may be composed of the consequences of other’s actions and words against us, but they donotget to define who we are. Onlywedecide that.”
Chapter Sixty-Eight: Rhea
Sweatcoatsmyforeheadand back, the trembling of my hands now joined by the chattering of my teeth. But what ails me isn’t due to the weather.
Xander adjusts his stance on my right, shifting his gaze to me every few minutes it seems, but I avoid it as I have since I learned about Bella being a shifter and his involvement with her death. “We’re almost done,” he murmurs, his arms crossed over his chest as wind blows his dark hair across his face. “It’s a smaller group.”
I’m sure that statement is meant to be helpful in some way. I’m sotiredthat I don’t know if I even have enough in me to heal another two guards, let alone another fewgroupsof them.
When I don’t respond, Xander runs a hand through his hair. “Tell me what’s going on.”
I keep my gaze on the incoming men, all without their armor. They stay clustered together, their expressions ranging from confused curiosity to utter disdain. That has been a recurring theme since I started healing them at the king’s request. I don’t pretend that I don’t know the reasons why.
Xander and I are stationed near the guard barracks to the west of the palace, hidden from view of the castle’s occupants. The barracks themselves are a standalone gray stone structure that houses only the guards at the palace while the rest of the king’s army lives closer to Vitour, so I had been told. I had known from history books that because mortals lacked direct access to magic unlike the sirens, mages, shifters, and fae, that they had been given strength in numbers and the ability to reproduce more easily. I had known, and yet seeing the sheersizeof just one part of King Dolian’s army had been shocking.
“Look at them all,” the king had said from a private balcony that peered out over justoneof the army’s training spaces in the distance. “Aren’t they magnificent?”
In truth, they were. The men that sparred with each other—doing target practice with arrows or perfecting their skills with all manner of weapons—wereincredible. Bodies in motion were stretched far and wide, hidden from the view of my tower because of the angle of the castle, but now spread out in front of me in a way that reminded me of an overflowing anthill.
“This is only afractionof the power I hold,” he continued, drawing his lips up as I stared at the rows and rows of men. All prepping as if war was not some impossibility but aninevitability. “You will heal them all.”
With the command from the king, I was brought here for the first time some days ago. While healing the sirens had been a slower process, the king demanded that I heal more than one man at a time, and thus, groups were brought to me, their size growing daily. Some were outrightterrified, begging me to stop once they saw the magic glowing in my hands. Many tried to run, while others attempted to attack me. Xander had brought men that he trusted for protection, including Brisk, who still guarded my door every day and accompanied me when Xander couldn’t, and together, they were able to keep the men contained. I had to pretend their terrified screams were innocuous.
I tell myself now that I’m not actually hurting them. If anything, I’m giving them a better chance at living a morenormallife—one without fear of dying once they pass through the Spell. But that is nothing but a lie, a placating statement whispered by the part of my mind that doesn’t want me to completely fall apart. These men are bound to the king, servants to his will alone, and if I know anything about my uncle, it is that his vengeance is a slow burning flame. With his army healed, he can march into any kingdom he wants.
I’ve lost count of the days that have passed. What’s the point in keeping track when each one is spent either forcing me to reach a depletion of my magic that I have never felt before or in the company of people who have the king’s favor and look at him as if he’s some sort of god and I’m the roach he’s affectionately taken in? Sometimes I feel as if I am standing outside of myself, watching things happentome. I can’t admit it—out loud or in my own head—but the numbness that accompanies those moments is welcome. It is relief, a temporary pause in the battering of the churning sea I’m stuck in.
“Rhea.” Xander’s voice cuts through my wandering mind, and my eyes snap to his. “Are you okay?”
I nod and refocus my gaze on the men in front of me, magic pooling in my hands.
“So the rumorsaretrue,” one guard says, a scar bisecting his eyebrow and crossing his eye, the iris a milky-blue color. “The king’s whore is actually a mage.”
“Watch it,” Xander snarls threateningly. “This is your future queen, and His Majesty hasdemandedthat you respect her.”
I try to smile in the only form of gratitude I can muster, but the movement feels foreign. The muscles atrophied from lack of use.
“You know what she did, Commander,” another man says, elbowing his way to the front and eyeing my magic with an accusatorial glare. I swallow and push down the ever-present screams of the men I killed to the back of my mind. “Amageas queen? After King Dolian insisted that mages were the root of all our kingdom’s plights? Seems a little suspicious, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t question the king’s choices, and neither should you.”
Gods, his loyalty to the king seems so believable. But had he thought that when he was tasked with killing Bella? Had Xander really just viewed her as another casualty to further his own cause? Did he make it quick? Was the last thing she saw the same cold and unforgiving gaze he had given me after Alexi died?
That’s what makes interacting with him hard now. I know he has so much to protect, beyond just himself. That people are relying on him and his secret machinations to create a better life forall. But I am tired of those most important to me being sacrificed. I’m petrified that anyone who gets close to me is inviting death to their doorstep. And, despite myself and the memories that haunt me, I have grown to like Xander. In another lifetime, perhaps, we could have had a friendship built on organic trust. But now his hand has caused the deaths ofthose closest to me, and I just don’t know if I have the strength to separate his two personas.
I’m justsotired.
“She is going to use hergifton you so that you can pass through the Spell without harm. There are no ill side effects. It will feel strange at first, but it will be over quickly, and then you can return to your duties,” Xander shouts, and the guards all tense. It’s funny to hear him repeat the line about how my magic will feel, considering he hasn’t been healed. Nor has he requested to.
My magic vibrates at my fingertips, the sensation traveling across my arms and chest where it connects to that deep well within me that I now have limited access to. Falling into the only sort of reprieve that I can conjure under the circumstances, I allow my eyes to close and, with a slow breath, release my magic towards the guards. There’s an instant sense ofreliefas I pull more power up, warmth tingling all over my body. Unbidden, the corners of my mouth rise as white light pours from me, and I don’t need to see to know that the guards’ bodies are lit from within, bright streaks running through them as if their veins are made of lightning.
Despite the chilly air that cascades over my body, I tilt my head back and bask in the sun’s rays. I get lost in the heady rush of using my magic. Why had I ever fought this? Why had Ideniedmyself this connection when I should have been celebrating it? My chest flares hot as my fingers twitch, almost like my magic is answering.Yes. It could always feel like this.
